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Mark Graban's leanblog.org - Lean Healthcare, Lean Hospitals, Healthcare Kaizen, Lean Thinking, Lean Manufacturing, Toyota Production SystemSat, 01 Aug 2015 14:06:51 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3A Lean Guy Reads the Boston Papers: Facts, Respect, and Baseball Fan Riskshttp://www.leanblog.org/2015/06/a-lean-guy-reads-the-boston-papers-facts-respect-and-baseball-risks/
http://www.leanblog.org/2015/06/a-lean-guy-reads-the-boston-papers-facts-respect-and-baseball-risks/#commentsWed, 10 Jun 2015 10:00:45 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=25963My wife and I were in Boston over the weekend, as it was her fifth reunion from her MIT master’s program. I’m also an alum, but was considered a “guest” since I graduated 16 years ago from my program and you don’t have to have an MIT degree to know 16 divided by 5 is not an integer.

Being MIT, the reunion wasn’t just about parties (and it’s not a homecoming weekend with a football game, as my Northwestern 20th reunion will be this fall). The reunion was also full of lectures by alumni and notable faculty. I’ll be blogging soon about lectures by MIT Sloan professors Steve Spear (check out my podcasts with him) and Zeynep Ton (I’m reading her book The Good Jobs Strategy now and hope she’ll be a podcast guest too).

A few things caught my eye on the Boston Herald and Boston Globe on Saturday.

MIT Commencement

My wife and I didn’t attend the MIT commencement ceremony that was held last Friday. But, we saw this article about the commencement speaker, our national Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith shared some important thoughts about respect and teamwork.

These are important thoughts. I’ve learned in my career, often the hard way, that having the right answer is NOT enough to successfully lead change. You need to know how to work with people and that’s something I’ve tried to get better about over time as a “recovering engineer” as some might say.

In the last paragraph, she makes a great point that must be applied in our Kaizen efforts. Norm Bodek taught me to “treat every idea like a gift” when employees speak up. If we criticize ideas or belittle people, they’re going to stop speaking up. The cost is immeasurable if we miss process improvement opportunities, large or small.

At the Ballpark

I’ll probably write a whole post about it, but a woman was injured by a flying broken bat at a Red Sox game in Fenway Park. She was hit in the head, was bleeding profusely, and was in critical condition in a hospital. She’s expected to survive (and is now in “fair” condition).

Was this a fluke? It is rare, perhaps to have an injury that severe, but what do the data say?

1,750 fans are hurt in the stands at Major League Baseball games each year… or two fans every three games. This woman was in the 2nd row near the third base dugout. There’s netting behind home plate for foul balls in American ballparks.

In Japan, they had netting that extended all the way down the first base and third base sides. I saw this when I attended a game at the Tokyo Dome last November. Nets like this would have protected the fan at Fenway.

Oh, and every time a pop fly was headed for the stands (on a higher trajectory that would have cleared the net, yet not been as harmful), ushers would blow whistles to alert fans.

Then, there would be a P.A. announcement and the scoreboard would have this message…. Every. Single. Time.

Watch out for balls!

As shared in an article at Business Insider, there are signs posted in American ballparks… but signs don’t really prevent injuries (see my BeMoreCareful.com blog for more about that). I don’t recall whistles, or scoreboard notices, or P.A. announcements.

We need to do more than tell people to “be alert” whether that’s at ballparks or in our workplaces and hospitals.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2015/06/a-lean-guy-reads-the-boston-papers-facts-respect-and-baseball-risks/feed/1A Visit to Franciscan St. Francis Health: A Workforce “Unleashed” by Kaizenhttp://www.leanblog.org/2014/10/a-visit-to-franciscan-st-francis-health-a-workforce-unleashed/
http://www.leanblog.org/2014/10/a-visit-to-franciscan-st-francis-health-a-workforce-unleashed/#commentsTue, 07 Oct 2014 09:00:10 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=24640Last week, I had the opportunity to spend a day with my Healthcare Kaizen co-author Joe Swartz and his colleagues at one of the three hospitals in the Franciscan St. Francis Health system. It was my second visit and, like the first, it reinforced my view that a culture of continuous improvement really is possible – and when you see it, it’s a wonderful thing. It’s even better to work in it.

The people of Franciscan have implemented and documented more than 20,000 Kaizen improvements over the past seven years. In most recent years, they have had between employee participation rates in the mid 30% to mid 40% ranges. Those are participation rates that most organizations would love to have, along with the measurable benefits – more than $5 million in hard cost savings, along with improvements to patient satisfaction, quality, and employee engagement.

Staff get to wear a special badge holder when they hit milestones about how many Kaizens they have implemented — 200 for one nurse! She’s a “Kaizen Star!”

I was asked to give a presentation about how to engage everybody in continuous improvement – a noble and important goal. They might be the only hospital to be visited by both Norman Bodek and Masaaki Imai, two men who have done as much as anybody to spread Kaizen. I humbly follow in their footsteps. In my talk, I shared some stories from other organizations that have gotten started with Kaizen, including other hospitals and Catholic Charities Fort Worth (where I’ve done some pro-bono work).

Rather than trying to stand on a stage to tell Franciscan what to do, I tried to draw out ideas from leaders in the audience. There are some departments where virtually everybody IS participating in Kaizen. “What are those leaders doing?,” I asked. “How can we use Kaizen principles to improve how we do Kaizen?”

I proposed that the answers were already in the room and just needed to shared and emulated more broadly. In the Kaizen approach, improvements are not just tested and implemented – they are documented and shared (through a home-grown web database they’ve created, along with other more analog methods).

Those leadership practices and leader behaviors from the departments with near 100% participation can be shared with other leaders. Franciscan already tries to encourage friendly competition, within teams and between departments by posting data about participation levels. The easiest thing to measure is the number of Kaizens and the percentage of people participating. The impact of those Kaizens also matters too, as leaders try to keep their employees connected to the mission and purpose of their work.

We brainstormed ways that leaders can share ideas about how to improve how they improve. They had many ideas and, in the spirit of Kaizen, I shared an idea from one of my clients who is planning to have occasional internal “Kaizen Conferences” to compare notes on what is working best throughout the health system to encourage Kaizen.

The answers are often right around us if we humbly inquire and compare notes. I admire Franciscan leaders for not blaming employees who don’t participate in Kaizen. They are challenging themselves to create environments where people want to do Kaizen. The leaders set the tone for their employees.

One department we visited was endoscopy. Joe and I interviewed leaders and a number of nurses. The teamwork was apparent, as the nurses wanted to talk to us in groups because most of their Kaizen work is done in small groups. There is a letter “i” in the word Kaizen, but it’s really more of a “we” thing than an “I thing.” They find joy in their improvement work, mainly for the intrinsic rewards that it brings (and the tangible benefits to their patients). A team of 30 people has implemented over 750 improvements so far this year, making them one of the highest-performing departments in the system.

The one word that got used a lot by staff and leaders was that they felt “unleashed” to use their creativity, to take action, and to do the right things for their patients and their co-workers. The imagery of that word “unleashed” makes one pause and think about organizations that figuratively “leash” their employees, as if to keep them from running off and doing things. Are we trying to get employees to behave or do we want them to improve and innovate?

At Franciscan, and in my visits to other hospitals, I’ve found the bottleneck in the improvement process is hardly ever a lack of employee ideas. People working in healthcare care deeply about their work and their patients. They are smart and creative. They can do great things, through the practice of Kaizen – identify and solving dozens or hundreds of improvements in their department.

What holds back improvement and innovation? It’s the organization’s culture and the behavior of managers and senior leaders. Most organizations say they want a “culture of continuous improvement” (just check the websites of health systems).

If you ever find yourself complaining that you team doesn’t have a culture of continuous improvement, don’t blame the employees – look in the mirror and think about what you’re doing (or not doing) as a manager. If you’re a senior leader, look in the mirror and reflect upon what behaviors of yours stifle Kaizen and which behaviors encourage and support Kaizen. It starts with you.

I’ll be writing more posts about the visit to Franciscan – it really is inspiring.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2014/10/a-visit-to-franciscan-st-francis-health-a-workforce-unleashed/feed/10Lean is a “Generic” Term for TPS (and The Toyota Way), Says Dan Joneshttp://www.leanblog.org/2014/09/lean-is-a-generic-term-for-tps-says-dan-jones/
http://www.leanblog.org/2014/09/lean-is-a-generic-term-for-tps-says-dan-jones/#commentsMon, 29 Sep 2014 09:00:58 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=24612People often say Lean is pretty simple (or that it’s just “common sense“). Yeah, some of the concepts are simple… but sometimes deceptively so. Or, we find that it’s easier to describe Lean (as a management system, a set of methods, and a culture) than it is to say how an organization should transform itself from here to there.

Many people (including the author of this recent article) make a point that Lean and the Toyota Production System are not the same thing. Some argue Lean is derivative and, therefore, different. I’ve heard Jim Womack say that they had to create a generic term or, otherwise, it would be more difficult to get people to accept Toyota’s methods (although the term “lean” sometimes gets in the way or has negative connotations).

Toyota Motor Corporation’s vehicle production system is a way of “making things” that is sometimes referred to as a “lean manufacturing system” or a “Just-in-Time (JIT) system,” and has come to be well known and studied worldwide.

Of course, I’d disagree that TPS or Lean is about “making things,” as the methods and principles have been used in so many non-production and service settings.

Lean thinking and practice are generic versions of the Toyota Production System (TPS) and the Toyota Way management system (2). Lean did not derive from theory but through observing practices at Toyota that were delivering superior performance in terms of product quality, efficiency (hours per car) and time to market for new products, leading Toyota to eventually become the largest car maker in the world.

I always encourage people to read about Lean and Toyota, as summarized or written about by different sources. These different perspectives and interpretations allow you to synthesize a view of Lean that makes sense to you and your company (although if things stray too far from accepted Lean or Toyota principles, it might become “L.A.M.E.” instead).

Oh, but Lean is simple? I’ve been studying and practicing Lean for 20 years and I’m still learning and stitching this together in my own mind, based on former Toyota people I’ve worked with, leaders from other great Lean organizations that I’ve worked with or learned from, and all the other forms of learning through books and my own experiments.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2014/09/lean-is-a-generic-term-for-tps-says-dan-jones/feed/1Kaizen is Usually a Team Sporthttp://www.leanblog.org/2014/05/kaizen-is-usually-a-team-sport/
http://www.leanblog.org/2014/05/kaizen-is-usually-a-team-sport/#commentsWed, 14 May 2014 09:00:58 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=23782Last Thursday, Joe Swartz and I presented about “Kaizen Coaching” at the annual Shingo Institute Conference.

In the start of our breakout session, I made a point I usually make, something I learned from Norman Bodek:

“A suggestion is something for you to do,
an idea is something I can do.”

The point is that a suggestion is often just thrown at the manager as something for them to do. The employee is powerless, unfortunately, to do anything about the problem they want to solve, even if they would want to.

In contrast, an idea is something that I can at least help implement. Most of the time, employees can help implement improvements in a Kaizen system, if they don’t completely lead it. Sometimes, however, a manager must step in and help as a servant leader. In the old suggestion box system, it was assumed employees were incapable. That mindset changes in Kaizen.

But, I got an interesting question in the hallway after the talk.

I was asked, essentially:

“I really liked your talk, but I’m concerned about one thing. You make it seem that Kaizen is for individuals, but we teach that it’s about small teams… how is that consistent?”

I thanked him for the question. I wish he had asked it in the main room during the Q&A period, as he might not have been the only one to get the wrong impression. An audience member getting the wrong impression is certainly the fault of the speakers. We need to communicate more clearly.

I explained that I was sorry that we didn’t explain things well,

A Kaizen idea, whether it’s the identification of a problem or a proposed countermeasure, usually starts with one person.

Then, things go through the full Kaizen process:

Find problems or ideas

Discuss them in the team

Test and implement them

Document what was done

Share what was done with others

The second step, the discussion, is where things often turn from an individual effort to a team sport. We talk about the problem to clarify what we are trying to fix. We discuss to see if there’s a quick fix or if root cause analysis is needed. Most of the way, it’s a team effort, even if that team is just two or three people.

Joe and I talked about this and his reflection was that many of the Kaizen examples shown only had one name listed in the recognition box. It’s definitely a good practice to share recognition widely and to have multiple names on a Kaizen report (as shown in this example).

We will do better next time in our presentation… continuously improving.

Within a department or a team, we often see individuals who play different roles on the team.

Some people are great at pointing out problems

Others are fantastic at figuring out who should work on a Kaizen

Some are really good at doing root cause analysis, when needed

Others do a super job of brainstorming solutions or countermeasures

Some are take charge people and can get things implemented

Others are excellent at coaching others and drawing out ideas from others

Some are very skilled at tabulating cost savings and financial benefits

Others are exceptional at succinctly documenting and summarizing what was done

Sometimes, a Kaizen will be done by one person from start to finish, but they should talk to others along the way. Other times, the responsibility for different parts of the Kaizen process will be handed off from one person to another.

Our team needs to be rowing in the same direction. We all have a role to play. Some are strong. Some are little, but have big voices. That’s why Kaizen is most effective as a team sport.

The author, George Halvorson, is the recently retired CEO of Kaiser Permanente and it’s really helpful that he is writing about the power of a culture of continuous improvement. Here are some highlights from the column and my comments.

Halvorson talks about the serious nature of their work, which includes trying to reduce sepsis (“number one cause of death in American hospitals”) and pressure ulcers (” a sure sign that immobile patients aren’t being properly cared for and also a gateway to mortality”).

He writes that most hospitals focus on asking staff to “adhere to best practices” (or what we might call “standardized work” in Lean). They are getting some excellent results, as he reports:

(On average, 7% of hospital patients in America get [a pressure ulcer]; we average below 1%. Several of our hospitals haven’t seen a single pressure ulcer in more than a year.)

How does Kaiser do it? Is it because their CEO is a genius and a singularly-good leader? Is it because they have super secret best practices nobody else has? No, it’s about culture.

That isn’t because we follow processes that are unique to us. The right protocols for patient care are universally shared. It’s not because of technology either, although we have invested in plenty of that. I believe the real difference is in our culture.

We have worked to instill a culture of continuous improvement. Our culture lets our employees know that if they see a way to do something better, they should take the initiative to point it out.

This is a really important culture. This is what Joe Swartz have written about in our Healthcare Kaizen books. KaiNexus, a technology company I work with, has a collaborative improvement platform that our customers are using to build or enhance their cultures of continuous improvement. I am really passionate about this and it’s basically my life’s work to help organizations create the culture that Halvorson describes.

Halvorson writes:

What does it take to cultivate a culture of continuous improvement? Three conditions must exist: People must have a rational understanding of how small improvements compound to make big differences. They must love improvingâ€”both because they are passionate about the importance of their work and because it feels so good to move to a new level of performance. And they must have enough confidence in their colleagues to believe that the organization is capable of making progress.

Joe and I have built on the word of the greats like Masaaki Imai and Norman Bodek (and others) who taught us that Kaizen is mainly about small improvements making a big difference. Too many organizations think Kaizen is only about formal weeklong events or projects. As one CEO I talked to said recently, he has a vision of 80% of his hospitals improvements coming from ideas generated and implemented by front-line staff, the rest being projects and events. These different modes of improvement go hand in hand.

Halvorson writes about the need to love improving. In my experience, people like improving, especially in healthcare, where it’s so meaningful for their patients. Kaizen also helps create a more engaging, less frustrating environment — and it leads to better safety, quality, and cost, with less waiting time.

There’s no shortage of intrinsic motivation in healthcare. Leaders need to lead! And, they need to know when to get out of the way. People will improve if they are given time, training, and leadership and when that improvement is connected to a mission that matters. Being told you can’t have a sweater on your chair or a waste basket at your desk – people hate that because it’s not Kaizen – it’s a top-down chain.

In Halvorson’s third point, he says that employees must have confidence in their colleagues. This means they need to have confidence in themselves — and great leaders build that confidence by coaching and mentoring through the Kaizen process, in supportive way. Starting with the tiniest of improvements can get the ball rolling to start building that confidence and enthusiasm.

Managers and leaders at all levels must have confidence in their employees and their ability to identify and implement improvements. If a leader thinks his people won’t have ideas or that they’ll have lousy ones, that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Halvorson, again:

You have to keep reminding the organization how capable it is. Every Friday afternoon for the past six years I have written a letter to all 180,000 employees celebrating a performance improvement, some great research, or a new award of that week.

Organizations that have the most improvement activity and the most sustained improvement programs (becoming a culture) have leaders who talk about Kaizen or continuous improvement constantly. It can’t be just one speech or an annual mention. At Franciscan St. Francis Health System (Joe Swartz’s organization, featured in our book Healthcare Kaizen) has leaders, from the CEO to front-line managers, who reinforce the need for Kaizen (connecting to purpose) while encouraging, recognizing, and celebrating improvement.

There are a few other necessary conditions for a culture of continuous improvement that Halvorson didn’t mention (he had limited space):

People need to feel free to point out problems without management “shooting the messenger,” blaming, or ignoring what they’ve brought up

Employees need to have time to work on improvement (the managers don’t have time to do it all) – read more on this

Different roles and departments need to be able to work together on systemic improvements that aren’t sub-optimizing

Continuous improvement methodologies, like Lean and Kaizen, work in healthcare. It requires leadership at all levels. They are simple concepts, but not easy to put into practice without a lot of dedication, practice, and hard work.

You can use the player (use the VCR-type controls) at the top of the post to listen to a streaming version of the podcast (or click here for the streaming audio and RSS subscription). The streaming link is faster for one-time listening (hardly any delay to start listening). Or you can use the download link to put it on your iPod or other MP3 player.

If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at leanpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the “Lean Line” at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id “mgraban”. Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2013/05/podcast-176-norman-bodek-the-harada-method/feed/1KaiNexus Update – User Badges & Sharing Improvements Widelyhttp://www.leanblog.org/2012/10/kainexus-update-badges-sharing-improvements/
http://www.leanblog.org/2012/10/kainexus-update-badges-sharing-improvements/#commentsThu, 18 Oct 2012 09:00:34 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=18760The team at KaiNexus (where I am the “chief improvement officer”) is always improving. I want to share a few of these improvements, as our CEO/co-founder Greg Jacobson, MD and I are presenting today at the annual conference of the Texas Association for Healthcare Quality.

We have two really cool new features: 1) virtual badges for individual users and 2) the ability to selectively share improvements outside of your own organization.

Badges? We need stinkin’ badges

Unlike the famous line from the movie “Blazing Saddles” (“we don’t need no stinkin’ badges“), our users can now earn badges that give them a virtual reward for their improvement efforts. If you’re the type of person who writes reviews on Yelp or checks in via Yelp or foursquare, you know about these badges and the small dopamine burst that might be created.

When an individual KaiNexus users reaches certain thresholds, the system gives them a notification and a virtual badge appears on their user profile.

Submitted 1st Opportunity for Improvement (OI)

An OI I submitted resulted in a change (note: this should happen maybe 70% of the time or more)

10th, 25th, or 50th OI

The badges are in color when they are earned. Users can see which users in their organization have participated the most in the Kaizen process — they know who they can reach out to for help and advice.

The user also gets an email notifying them of this virtual reward – in this case, our CEO, Greg, gets to be a user of KaiNexus when he works as a night shift emergency physician (his organization is one of our customers).

See below:

Many of our customers talk to us about ways they can give recognition and thanks for improvements via our system — not focusing on big financial rewards, but building on the intrinsic motivation that is so strong in healthcare professionals.

Sharing Improvements Beyond Your Organization

In the KaiNexus system, we are big believers in transparency. People within a hospital or health system can see every active and completed OI – to facilitate sharing and learning.

Many of our forward-thinking customers (and prospective customers) have asked about sharing ideas with OTHER KaiNexus users (from other organizations).

We now have the capability for users to set a particular completed OI as one that is shared and searchable by users at other KaiNexus customer sites. Again, this is optional and the transparency is an “opt in.” We think customers will freely share ideas related to safety – things that will definitely help other organizations.

In the Kaizen approach, there’s no shame in using the ideas of others or “stealing shamelessly,” as Norm Bodek always puts it.

But, stealing shamelessly doesn’t mean “copying blindly.” Our software allows a user to take one of these shared OIs as the starting point for their own local OI. They can (and should) adapt the idea, not just adopt it.

We hope as the use of KaiNexus spreads beyond our initial nine customers, that this sharing becomes even more powerful and helps facilitate widespread healthcare transformation.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts and reactions. If you’d like to talk with us about how KaiNexus can help “make improvement easier” for your organization, let us know and/or check out our website.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2012/10/kainexus-update-badges-sharing-improvements/feed/6How @KaiNexus is Different Than “Collaborative Ideation” Softwarehttp://www.leanblog.org/2012/09/how-kainexus-is-different-than-ideation-software/
http://www.leanblog.org/2012/09/how-kainexus-is-different-than-ideation-software/#commentsSat, 01 Sep 2012 14:14:53 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=18355There are many articles written about collaborative “ideation” systems (sometimes referred as “crowdsourcing”) – web and software systems that allow ideas to bubble up from a large population of employees. I’d call these “suggestions,” per Norman Bodek’s definition that ideas are things I can do, suggestions are things somebody else needs to do.

There’s a time and a place for ideation systems… but it’s a different (and likely complementary) model than KaiNexus, the startup I am a part of.

Q: The competition among wireless carriers to introduce new services is relentless. How do you keep up?

A: We have what we think is one of the largest crowd-sourcing ideation programs. We have 250,000 employees. All of them can submit an idea, and it’s crowd-sourced, so people say, “But what about this?” or “What about that?” We bring some of those ideas into commercial use.For example, a young father was using two devices at work, one for work and one for home, trying to keep up with his job and his family. He came up with the idea of having a single device with multiple personas. He submitted that idea. We worked it through our Foundry outside Dallas, one of our three innovation centers around the world. And it became a commercial product we launched last fall called AT&T Toggle.

These ideation systems do something that local kaizen-based improvement systems can’t do. They can bring a big technical or new-product idea into existence, since it’s something that likely can’t be done by a single person in a single department.

I think these systems are great when they incorporate customer ideas and feedback, since customers can’t directly make the ideas happen. Starbucks and Dell are two examples of companies that have these systems. If a customer wants to propose a cherry-lavender latte, other customers can vote yay or nay. There’s a big social and voting aspect to these systems, as they try to draw on the “wisdom of the crowd.”

Ideation systems are looking for big home-run ideas. They bring a SMALL number of ideas into reality (because the cherry-lavender latte might be a horrible idea). They, in a sense, automate the traditional suggestion box (and they democratize it, in some ways, taking control away from a central suggestion committee).

KaiNexus is built on proven “kaizen” principles for improvement. Our web-based system (with a companion iOS app) is set up to:

Let people identify problems or opportunities for improvement that THEY can address locally

Allows people to participate in their own improvement efforts, with their manager and colleagues

Get input from others – in your department or other departments that would be impacted by your idea

Allows those big ideas that can’t be addressed locally to bubble up to be moved laterally to the level of leadership (or department) that CAN address it

Keeps everybody in the loop – transparency is a core principle

With KaiNexus, we see organizations making changes 60 to 90% of time when an opportunity for improvement is initiated. If KaiNexus were used at Starbucks, we wouldn’t want the ideation system turned off. KaiNexus would be used by baristas and managers to implement ideas that allowed them to make a cherry-lavender latte more efficiently. The decision to offer (or not offer) such a product would be the result of the ideation software.

KaiNexus is about LOTS of ideas, implementing the vast majority locally — not about a SMALL number of big ideas. You can watch some short videos of one of our early adopters, Dr. Julie Lewis, talking about how they use KaiNexus in her health system – for ideas both large and small. These opportunities for improvement didn’t have to bubble up to the CEO or get voted on throughout the hospital.

It’s not necessarily a choice – KaiNexus and ideation systems can co-exist and complement each other, I’d propose. If people are more engaged in kaizen-style improvement, they are probably more likely to put ideas into the ideation system.

I’m interested in your feedback — is that description and comparison clear, between collaborative ideation and KaiNexus?

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2012/09/how-kainexus-is-different-than-ideation-software/feed/1Jerks Can Be Creativity Killers, Alrighthttp://www.leanblog.org/2012/07/jerks-can-be-creativity-killers-alright/
http://www.leanblog.org/2012/07/jerks-can-be-creativity-killers-alright/#commentsMon, 02 Jul 2012 17:00:04 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=17683Saw this in the most recent Fast Company: Is Your Manager A Creativity Killer? If the manager is something like a case study from the book The No A**hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, then the answer is probably yes.

Norm Bodek always teaches that everybody is creative… we just get it drummed out of us by school and the workplace. As Dr. Deming taught, intrinsic motivation can only go DOWN over time… an organization can only hope to not de-motivate people and I’d assume there’s a corollary that you can only avoid making people less creative – you can’t make them more creative.

The three short stories in the FC piece illustrate why.

The story starts with some delicious data:

A recent study shows that 64% of bosses say they inspire creativity; just 41% of their employees agree.

In the three short case studies:

You have a manager, described as “an ass,” whose behavior (shouting and browbeating) doesn’t live up their inspirational quote about “creativity takes courage.”

A manager who gives a pep talk about brainstorming big ideas… and then violates basic brainstorming rules by shouting down every idea.

An organization with an online suggestion box where the manager would read “the stupidest ones” to a friend over the phone. Yup, that will kill an improvement program.

How can leaders be that unaware of the impact of their behavior on their employees and their organizations?

Now, I’m happy to present another auction that comes as a result of me “5S-ing” my home office as my wife and I prepare for our move to San Antonio. I had duplicate copies of many great books – some due to getting a free review copy from a publisher and some due to me “losing” the book and re-purchasing it (I know, tsk tsk, not very Lean of me).

I’m auctioning some great sets (batches?) of books – they all end roughly 10 PM EDT on Sunday May 6. I will donate free standard shipping for U.S.-based winners. If you want expedited U.S. shipping or any form international shipping, I’d ask that you pay the actual cost.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2012/04/new-lean-blog-charity-auctions-great-books/feed/5Full “Healthcare Kaizen” Book Website Launcheshttp://www.leanblog.org/2012/03/full-healthcare-kaizen-book-website-launches/
http://www.leanblog.org/2012/03/full-healthcare-kaizen-book-website-launches/#commentsTue, 20 Mar 2012 17:00:18 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=16702My co-author, Joe Swartz, and I did a soft launch a few weeks back, but we’re happy to announce that the full website for our upcoming book Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Improvements is live at www.HCkaizen.com. Details were in my email newsletter that went out today (sign up here), but I’ll fill you in, as a valued blog reader, as well.

You can use the player (use the VCR-type controls) at the top of the post to listen to a streaming version of the podcast (or click here for the streaming audio and RSS subscription). The streaming link is faster for one-time listening (hardly any delay to start listening). Or you can use the download link to put it on your iPod or other MP3 player.

If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at leanpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the “Lean Line” at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id “mgraban”. Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2012/03/podcast-141-norman-bodek-remembers-taiichi-ohno/feed/0Today Would Have Been Taiichi Ohno’s 100th Birthdayhttp://www.leanblog.org/2012/02/today-would-have-been-taiichi-ohnos-100th-birthday/
http://www.leanblog.org/2012/02/today-would-have-been-taiichi-ohnos-100th-birthday/#commentsWed, 29 Feb 2012 22:27:26 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=16417Hat tip to John Shook and the Lean Enterprise Institute for pointing this out via his email newsletter — today would have been the 100th birthday of Taiichi Ohno, usually credited as one of the creators of the Toyota Production System, the basis for “Lean.”

Today is a good day to reflect on what we’ve learned from Ohno. I will go grab a book off the shelf and you can read some of Ohno for free via Google Books. You can also buy books by him or about him via Amazon.com(affiliate link). Please add your thoughts and reflections as a comment to this post. What did you learn from Ohno and how have you applied it? I’ll update the post with my thoughts.

I’m also trying to get comments from Sami Bahri, DDS (the “world’s first Lean dentist”) since he read Ohno’s work and applied it to his practice. Also reaching out to Eric Ries, who has found Ohno’s work influential in the Lean Startup methodology, as well.

“All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value adding wastes.”

That same idea applies very well in healthcare — reducing the time from when a customer / patient requests an appointment / care / surgery to the point of delivering that care to the point of getting paid.

Another great Ohno-ism:

“Why not make the work easier and more interesting so that people do not have to sweat? The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people’s creativity. People don’t go to Toyota to ‘work’ they go there to ‘think'”

And:

No one has more trouble than the person who claims to have no trouble.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2012/02/today-would-have-been-taiichi-ohnos-100th-birthday/feed/8My Conference Kaizenhttp://www.leanblog.org/2012/02/my-conference-kaizen/
http://www.leanblog.org/2012/02/my-conference-kaizen/#commentsWed, 29 Feb 2012 11:00:18 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=16400I spent Monday and Tuesday in lovely Phoenix at the ASQ Lean and Six Sigma annual conference. I saw mant friends there, including Karen Martin, former (and possibly future) guest blogger Mike Lopez, and Tony Manos from 5S Supply. The conference was kicked off by a great keynote by Ari Weinzwei, a founder and CEO of the amazing Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor and I’ll blog about that real soon.

As tends to happen at conferences, I also ran into some folks I have met once or twice before. I can be really bad about connecting a name to a face when I’m surprised to bump into a familiar face. I try to cheat and glance at the conference name tag when I can… but more often than not, the dang thing is turned around backward, so you can’t read the name! I came up with a “quick and easy kaizen” to try to address this in a simple, inexpensive way.

With the badge hanging around your neck, most lanyards have that annoying tendency to flip around and face the wrong way. The quickest countermeasure I could come up with was to write my name, in pen, on the BACK of the name badge. That way, if my name badge was backward, people could still see my name. But that didn’t help with my problem of not being able to see the names of others.

Anyway, since I was speaking about kaizen, or continuous improvement (the theme of our upcoming book Healthcare Kaizen), I decided to write up a simple Quick and Easy Kaizen report, using the model my co-author’s organization learned from Norman Bodek.

Here is my Kaizen (click for a larger view):

I think this qualifies as a classic Kaizen (small change for the better) since it:

Addressed (maybe not perfectly) a problem I was personally facing

I took the initiative to make the change (I don’t have a “manager” to talk it over with, in my role)

It was quick and easy – didn’t cost any money really

I could test the impact of the change, following the PDSA model

I was able to work this example into my conference talk to try to share the idea and get feedback.

Normally, the Kaizen process involves discussion with one’s supervisor and a team. It’s not a solo exercise. I was hoping that sharing the Kaizen report would prompt others to “steal” my idea (which is completely OK with Kaizen). During my session, I saw some people, right away, writing their name on the back of their badge.

I think a situation like this shows that people will readily choose to adopt a change that isn’t their idea — if it makes sense and if it addresses a problem they have. We don’t have to force the spread of improvement ideas. Good ideas will spread.

In the workshop, I got some great feedback, as we might get in the workplace:

Could you use a sharpie to make it easier to read?

Why didn’t you address the root cause of why the name badge turned backward?

Could conferences just print your name on both sides?

Couldn’t you just get a clip and attach it to your jacket in a way that won’t flip backward?

Great ideas and great input. I didn’t know the root cause for why badges flip backward, so I didn’t have a good countermeasure for that. But, as they say “don’t let perfect get in the way of better. Even if it wasn’t the best ultimate countermeasure, I think my countermeasure was a good start.

It was fun to see, over the next two days, how some other people had written their name on the back of the name badge. Let’s see what sort of long-term countermeasure or process change that ASQ (and other conferences) can up with for future events.

At the very end of the second day of the conference, two women who had been in my workshop stopped to thank me for the Kaizen presentation. One woman wanted me to see how the other had written her name on the back of her badge, but she had, herself, not written her name on back of her badge. “I meant to, but I forgot,” she said. We talked about how that goes to show that when you have an idea for improvement you need to:

Take immediate action on the idea (before you forget)

Have a system to keep track of that idea until it can be implemented (a visual idea board or a system like KaiNexus, a company I work with and own a small stake in)

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2012/02/my-conference-kaizen/feed/8Kaizen on the Boeing 737 Linehttp://www.leanblog.org/2012/02/kaizen-on-the-boeing-737-line/
http://www.leanblog.org/2012/02/kaizen-on-the-boeing-737-line/#commentsFri, 10 Feb 2012 10:00:58 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=16093There was a nice article in the Wall Street Journal this week about the Boeing 737 and some of their Lean and Kaizen (continuous improvement) work: “Boeing Teams Speed Up 737 Output — Jet Maker’s Innovation Crews Search for Ways to Streamline Production as Aircraft Demand Soars.” Boeing needs to increase production by more than 70%, so the company is looking to “rally employees for ways to make its jets more efficiently and avoid expanding its factories and its costs.”

One example of an employee-driven idea helps prevent tires from being punctured on the line:

Workers try to leave few stones unturned. Mr. Dohrmann, for example, came up with the canvas wheel covers that now hug the four main landing-gear tires as the single-aisle planes advance down an assembly line. The covers solved a vexing problem: stray metal fasteners on the factory floor sometimes puncture tires. The solution saves Boeing about $10,000 for each tire that needs to be replacedâ€”roughly $250,000 a year at the Renton plant based on historical mishapsâ€”as well as the labor costs involved in replacing them.

The article highlights the connection of Kaizen to Lean. It’s a nice (and rare) example of the WSJ recognizing that Lean isn’t just about “just in time” and low inventory (see their record of mistakes).

Boeing started emphasizing employee-generated ideas in Renton in the late 1990s, when the 737 plant began adopting “lean” manufacturing techniques that were developed by the Japanese auto industry and embraced by U.S. car makers in the 1980s. Many companies, including fast-food giants, now use lean methods.

I wish they had included “including hospitals” instead of “fast-food giants.” Starbucks is using Lean, but what other “fast-food giants?” Many Seattle hospitals, including Virginia Mason Medical Center, have learned a lot about Lean from Boeing. Boeing is using the term “innovation teams” to describe the groups, some 1300 of them across their programs:

Boeing’s employee teams are composed of workers with varying backgrounds-from mechanics to engineers-and tend to focus on a specific part of a jet, such as the galleys. Teams meet as often as once a week and typically have seven to 10 members.

That sounds a bit like the classic Japanese “quality circle” approach – something I haven’t heard about in a long time. You hear more often about week-long events (ie. “rapid improvement events” or “kaizen events,” the latter term being a bit of a misnomer) or you hear about smaller “quick and easy kaizen” approaches popularized in the U.S. by Norman Bodek (and a major part of our upcoming Healthcare Kaizen book). The WSJ piece talks about some improvements taking years to come to fruition – showing that not all Kaizen opportunities are quick and easy. It takes a mix of improvements and approaches to engage employees in fixing small problems and large, complicated ones. We certainly have a similar mix of problems and opportunities in healthcare. I hope we get more engagement of healthcare professionals in solving these important problems.

Updated: After I posted this, I got a great question via Twitter:

@leandaily @MarkGraban Great to see employees solving problems but how about solving why metal fixings fall on the floor in the first place

Yes, it would be ideal to find the root cause(s) of why there is metal on the floor to begin with. If this is a really sticky problem, then it might be reasonable (even if not ideal) to protect the tires from said metal.

Our good friend Norman Bodek asked me to share this with you about the Harada Method, which (as he says) “promises to create workers who are masters of their positions and champions of continuous improvement — at little to no cost.”

The recipe is one part monozukuri (which, loosely translated, means craftsmanship, or product excellence) and one part hitozukuri(an organization’s commitment to the lifelong development of its employees, or people excellence), and it’s steeped in respect for workers.

It’s called the Harada Method, and it’s designed to help shop-floor workers develop their skills and capabilities — on their own.

And it continues:

Bodek notes that the Harada Method is enormously popular [55000 people at 380 companies] in Japan, for much the same reasons that American manufacturers are taking an interest in it. Japan, like the United States, is struggling to compete with low-cost labor in China and other emerging economies.

“But they can compete by raising the skill level of [their] companies,” Bodek says.

I don’t know too much about this approach yet, but I think it bears looking into. Learn more from the article or the webinar.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2011/10/norm-bodek-the-harada-method-article-and-free-webinar/feed/3“Management By Walking Around” vs. “Gemba Walks”http://www.leanblog.org/2011/10/dr-deming-on-management-by-walking-around/
http://www.leanblog.org/2011/10/dr-deming-on-management-by-walking-around/#commentsWed, 05 Oct 2011 09:00:19 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=14656It’s important not to confuse a proper Lean “gemba walk” with the idea of “management by walking around” (MBWA). What did the late, great Dr. W. Edwards Deming say in 1982?

‘Management by walking around’ is hardly ever effective. The reason is that someone in management, walking around, has little idea about what questions to ask, and usually does not pause long enough at any spot to get the right answer.”

In the last manufacturing company I worked for, one of the production managers was very proud of how he would start each day by flying through and shaking hands with each of his employees. I guess this was well intended, but he was always in such a rush, he never paused in one spot very long. This was classic MBWA. He had about 30 employees to greet. This company had stripped out a layer of supervisors in the misguided idea that they were “non value added.” This poor guy couldn’t manage 30 people effectively, no matter how hard he tried. That wasn’t his fault. It was a structural problem.

In their attempts to “be Lean,” I guess they never studied the Toyota model where there’s a working team leader for every 5 to 8 employees and a group leader for every few team leaders. They had stripped out the team leader type level, so of course things weren’t managed properly and there wasn’t any continuous improvement, other than the changes I could push as an internal Lean person. This was a bad model and I was glad I got out of that company.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2011/10/dr-deming-on-management-by-walking-around/feed/12One-Question Poll on Healthcare Employee Idea & Suggestion Programshttp://www.leanblog.org/2011/09/short-survey-on-healthcare-employee-idea-and-suggestion-programs/
http://www.leanblog.org/2011/09/short-survey-on-healthcare-employee-idea-and-suggestion-programs/#commentsMon, 26 Sep 2011 09:00:47 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=14510I volunteered to give a presentation last Friday for the North Texas Society for Healthcare Risk Management, where I was able to debut some new material from our upcoming book, Healthcare Kaizen. These continuous improvement methods are a great way for front-line staff and leaders to both identify risks, allowing them to take action to prevent those problems from occurring.

I asked the audience a question that was answered by show of hands. I think we had about 200 people in the room and maybe half were from healthcare (the rest were attorneys). I asked how many had some sort of formal idea or suggestion program for front-line staff.

About 10 hands went up.

I then asked how many of those programs were really effective. All hands went down.

Is that surprising to you, as a reader?

I think most healthcare organizations wished they could engage front-line staff in an effective improvement program. But, I think many of those organizations have used the “suggestion box” model, which I argue is outdated and completely dysfunctional. We need real Kaizen – the methods from Toyota and leaders like Masaaki Imai and Norman Bodek.

Readers, please answer this survey – and only if you work in healthcare. You can also comment on the blog post, regardless of your industry (but please identify if you are healthcare or not).

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2011/09/short-survey-on-healthcare-employee-idea-and-suggestion-programs/feed/1A New Workshop from Norman Bodek: The Harada Methodhttp://www.leanblog.org/2011/08/a-new-workshop-from-norman-bodek-the-harada-method/
http://www.leanblog.org/2011/08/a-new-workshop-from-norman-bodek-the-harada-method/#commentsSat, 13 Aug 2011 08:00:14 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=13926Mark’s Note: I’m sharing this material about a new workshop that my friend and mentor Norman Bodek is debuting in October… plus his writeup just makes for interesting reading. This is not an advertisement, it’s something I’m sharing out of my respect for Norman and his contributions to Lean and Kaizen education… and yesterday was his birthday!

Norman’s workshop info:

Please join me the week of October 3rd for a Harada Workshop on how to motivate and guide your associates to reach their highest human potential

“Virtually everyone can be successful in life.” – Takashi Harada

It is amazing what people are capable of doing if they can just believe in themselves and have a strong coach to support and guide them. I love to bicycle and was thrilled to watch the Tour De France and see what people are capable of achieving. Miraculously, I have discovered one of the greatest motivational teachers on the globe that developed a method to bring out the best from his students.

I want to teach you the Harada Method to be a great leader of people

Takashi Harada was a junior high school track and field coach in Osaka, Japan in the worst neighborhood with children who had very little confidence in themselves. However, he noticed that there were other track and field coaches in Osaka who consistently had winning teams. Through his studies and practice, he put together a winning method that brought 13 of his students to win gold medals in the national track and field competition. For the students, this was like winning the Olympics – they were the best athletes in all of Japan. His school also went from the lowest rated out of 380 to the highest for five years in a row.

Mr. Harada after 20 years as a coach took his method to industry where he has already taught over 55,000 people in Japan at 380 different companies including Kirin Beer, Uniqlo, Nomura Security, Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, Kanebo Cosmetics, and others. Mr. Harada is one of the best management consultants in Japan today.

I want to teach you what Harada taught me.

The Harada Method

The Harada Method teaches self-reliance, to clearly learn how to “stand on your own two feet.” People pick a central goal, develop a time frame and plan out how to go about achieving the goal. This in itself is not easy, for most people are reluctant to pick a goal. They do not want to fail. But, using the Harada Method, people see the advantage to have a personal goal that is linked to the corporation’s vision. They then can see the purpose and value of their new goal and, with your help, they work on a process to get there. Much like athletes striving to win a championship, employees write down their goals, write out a step-by-step plan to attain their goals, measure themselves against their goals and receive guidance and feedback. If people follow this plan, they will be absolutely successful. The Harada Method is now recognized as one of the most systematic ways to enhance human resource development.

With the Harada Method, you think of the purpose whenever you set a goal. Why do you want to earn $120,000 per year? Why do you want to sell 500 cars a month? Why do you want to be a better carpenter? Why do you want to be a corporate accountant? Why do you want to be a physician assistant?

Some of the things you will learn during the course include:

How to use the Harada Method for yourself.

How to use all of the Harada forms to set your own goals and teach others.

How to set up a mentee/mentor process in your company and coach your employees on the method (coaching is vital to sustaining the process).

What self-reliance is and why it is important to you and the competitiveness of your organization.

The purpose and value of goal setting.

The process of how to pick goals.

How to trust your employees to make the right decisions for your customers and your organization.

How to teach top management the value of the Harada Method.

Why it is important to pick target dates, how to do it, and how to measure the process of reaching your goals.

How to write out strong purposes and values to sustain your new efforts.

How to analyze your past successes and failures.

How to predict problems in the future and how to solve them.

The importance of establishing new routines to break past habits.

How to prepare a daily journal to schedule your work life and keep you focused on your growth goals.

How to encourage and give feedback to your employees on their performance.

When I first brought Lean to America in the early 1980’s, Japanese managers taught us that Lean should not result in people losing their jobs, but American management didn’t get the message. In 2004, Steelcase leadership initiated Lean/kaizen training throughout the company and required all employees to get fit, to shed excess manufacturing capacity and implement Lean in manufacturing, sales and distribution. Last week, Steelcase announced that it was closing three plants in Michigan and moving the work to Mexico, eliminating 750 jobs. Sad, but true.

The only way to save American industry from stories like this one is to challenge every single employee to become great – to build their skills and capabilities. They must envision themselves as competing in the “Olympics.” When athletes prepare themselves for the Olympics, they give everything they have to improving to the highest possible level of skill and endurance. They set their growth goals, monitor their progress, work every day to expand their capabilities and work with a coach to help them make the necessary adjustments to stay on target. Everyone in the company needs to put in the same type of effort to make the company successful.

There will be two parts to the course:The first level will last three days and will give an in-depth introduction to the Harada Method. Attendees will be led through the Harada Method and receive all of the tools used to implement it.

The second part is to give you full certification, which takes an additional two days, will be limited seven people. Attendees will practice teaching and leading the Harada Method, and those who participate in this part of the course will receive a month of personal coaching from Norman Bodek to give feedback and answer any questions they might have.

Also included in the Course – Quick and Easy Kaizen

In addition to the Harada Method, I will also teach you how to establish or expand a Quick and Easy Kaizen process in your company. Quick and Easy Kaizen is a system to inspire and embed a spirit of continuous improvement in your company. With Quick and Easy Kaizen, employees come up with ideas to improve the workplace and implement them (with guidance from supervisors). It is not a burden on management because the employee is responsible for implementing the idea, not management.

Toyota has had the system in place since 1970 and other companies have also used it with great success. In 2005, for example, Gulfstream was receiving less than one idea per employee each year. They Last year, the same number of employees came up with over 34,000 ideas that saved Gulfstream millions of dollars. All the company had to do was ask the employees for ideas.

Your management wants you to implement continual service improvement, yet your workload is overwhelming and your team resources are stretched. How can you get everyone involved in improvement? The answer is Quick and Easy Kaizen, a program used for decades in many Japanese and American companies to save time, reduce costs, and improve quality. This session will teach you how to turn your staff’s unique expertise and knowledge into actionable improvements that the workers themselves can implement. You will also see how this quality program can be used in conjunction with methodologies like Six Sigma, Lean, and others.

-Daniel Lafever, Franciscan Alliance Information Services

The Quick and Easy Kaizen program implemented at Franciscan Alliance Information Services, where Quick and Easy Kaizen was implemented, has already saved the alliance $1.7 million.

Respect for People and Harada Method Workshop

Monday October 3rd, 9:00am to 5:00pm

Tuesday 8:00am to 4:00pm

Wednesday 8:00am to 1:00pm

The Certification workshop

Thursday 8:00am to 5:00pm

Friday 8:00 to 1:00pm

Your instructor:

Norman Bodek:

I have attended four workshops in Japan with Mr. Harada and am currently co-authoring a book with him.

I was on the cover of Industry Week last December with Michael Dell and others as a member of Industry Week’s Hall of Fame.

I can honestly tell you that the Harada Method excites me as much as anything I learned from Dr. Shingo or Mr. Ohno. Please join me this October to find out why.

I have published 250 books on management and written five. I often keynote management conferences, consult with organizations and currently teach at Portland State University.

The Respect for People Harada workshop will be run at the Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront, 1401 SW Naito Parkway, Portland, Oregon 97201; 1-503-226-7600, from Monday, October 3 to Friday, October 7. You will receive a full set of slides, copies of all teaching material and editable copies of the Harada forms. The first three days cost $2,500.00

The Certification workshop – last two days is designed for you to learn the information, to present the slides, and to be coached to improve your delivery style. You will receive one month of personal coaching from Norman Bodek. The certification workshop extension costs an additional $2,000.00

You will be able to use the concepts for yourself and to teach them at your current facility. If you go to another location, you will agree to pay PCS Inc. – Harada $2,000 per location.

If you are or become an independent consultant to teach the Harada Method, you will pay PCS. Inc. – Harada 15% of your gross income. (Harada charges 30% in Japan)

Lunches and coffee breaks are included. We have a special rate at the Marriott for $139.00 per night.

I hope you will take this unique opportunity to spend at least three days with me in Portland, Oregon. I will limit the number of attendees so please sign up early.

To reserve you spot at the workshop send an email to bodek@pcspress.com or call me at 360-737-1883. I will then invoice you or your organization.

]]>http://www.leanblog.org/2011/08/a-new-workshop-from-norman-bodek-the-harada-method/feed/1A Call for (Daily) Healthcare Kaizen Exampleshttp://www.leanblog.org/2011/07/a-call-for-healthcare-kaizen-examples/
http://www.leanblog.org/2011/07/a-call-for-healthcare-kaizen-examples/#commentsTue, 12 Jul 2011 09:00:20 +0000http://www.leanblog.org/?p=12146As regular readers know, I’m working on a second book: Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Improvements. My co-author, Joe Swartz, and I have a lot of examples of “daily kaizen” that will be shared in the book. The idea isn’t to copy the specific ideas as much as it is to illustrate the methods for getting, implementing, and sustaining small, low-cost, low-risk improvements that make people’s work easier and improve patient care.

Do you have examples you would want to share and maybe have published?

Joe’s organization, Franciscan St. Francis Health, has been using the “Quick and Easy Kaizen” method, as taught by Norman Bodek, for at least five years with great results. In this method, improvements are written up in a “Kaizen Report,” as shown below:

It’s a simple, yet effective method for documenting and recognizing improvements, no matter how small. Tell (or show!) the before and after and write a statement about the impact of the improvement.

Do you have similar examples from your healthcare organization that you would want to share and maybe have published in our book? If so, email Mark. Or, you can post a description of your kaizen methods in the comments for other readers to learn from… if you use Norman Bodek’s approach or any other variation (inspired by Lean Hospitals or otherwise), it would be great to hear about it even if you’re not looking to get an example published.